Promo Dynamic – Cadbury and Mars turn the focus on straight money-off deals
The Grocer
Confectionery brands are shelling out for more promotional space as Easter approaches. Cadbury, Nestlé and Mars have all ramped up their confectionery-based activity in featured space locations such as gondola ends and pallets.
Nestlé has shown the greatest month-on-month hike in percentage terms, with deals up more than a third to 245 in the four weeks ending 23 March. This was an increase of 62 deals compared with last month, with Cadbury running 64 more. On a year-on-year basis, it’s a different picture: of the big three confectioners only Nestlé is running more offers than in 2013.
But while running fewer deals than last year, both Cadbury and Mars are increasing the average savings offered to shoppers – with the typical deal on a Cadbury product up from 30.6% a year ago to 36.3%, and on Mars lines up from 35.4% to 38.5%. In both cases, the confectioners are making much greater use of straight money-off deals, which accounted for about half of all Cadbury offers this March compared with a quarter in 2013, and three-quarters of Mars deals compared with less than half last year.
Nestlé, meanwhile, is running slightly fewer straight ‘save’ promotions than in 2013while offering more x-for-y offers – a mechanic Cadbury and Mars have both shifted away from. Wine brand Hardys is also moving away from x-for-y while ramping up straight ‘save’ offers from half its deals a year ago to more than three quarters. In total, it is running 155% more deals than in March 2013, continuing the promotional activity that kicked off recently following a brand revamp. Despite the surge by Hardys, the overall wine category has accounted for a smaller proportion of all featured space promotions in the past four weeks than it did a year ago – at 9.5% versus 10.6%.
Fruit, veg and chilled dairy have also taken less featured space than a year ago, despite being the categories supposedly at the heart of the latest price war that has broken out in the nation’s supermarkets. In contrast, confectionery, beer and spirits are taking more space.
| 4 weeks to 23/03/2014 | ||||||||
| Ranking | Rank last month | Brand | Number of promotions | Increase / Decrease on previous month | Increase / Decrease on previous year | Average % saving | Average savings % change m-o-m | Average savings % change y-o-y |
| 1 | 1 | Cadbury | 391 | 19.57% | -6.68% | 36.33% | 1.5% | 5.7% |
| 2 | 5 | Nestle | 245 | 33.88% | 16.67% | 36.59% | 1.1% | -1.3% |
| 3 | 2 | Birds Eye | 212 | 6.00% | 6.00% | 36.43% | -0.4% | -4.6% |
| 4 | 4 | Coca-Cola | 188 | 0.00% | 38.24% | 30.56% | -2.2% | 1.6% |
| 5 | 3 | McVitie’s | 179 | -6.28% | -13.11% | 33.67% | -0.3% | -3.4% |
| 6 | 6 | Mars | 159 | 8.90% | -8.62% | 38.52% | 1.4% | 3.1% |
| 7 | 7 | Walkers | 149 | 9.56% | 29.57% | 35.46% | -1.6% | -2.9% |
| 8 | 9 | Hardy’s | 102 | -1.92% | 155.00% | 40.22% | 0.3% | -1.3% |
| 9 | 11 | Fairy | 96 | 10.34% | 35.21% | 36.77% | -3.1% | -4.3% |
| 10 | 8 | Kellogg’s | 92 | -11.54% | -36.55% | 44.48% | 2.9% | 9.1% |
| Total o/l | 2024 | -0.78% | -2.36% | 25.90% | -1.4% | -2.0% | ||
| Total brands | 9095 | 1.75% | 4.35% | 33.38% | -1.4% | -0.6% | ||
| Total | 11119 | 1.28% | 3.06% | 32.02% | -1.5% | -0.7% |
Published in The Grocer, 07 April 2014